Thursday, February 10, 2005

Tsunami stories you won't see on the news.

Here's what I mean by yesterday's post on UNICEF, of there being a lot that is falling through the cracks in tsunami relief. You won't see these stories in the Wall Street Journal or on TV. Why? Because there is no sensational component, here.

There's an 'ocean of work to be done' says Joey Caspersz, who's privately heading what one may call a task force of two, providing relief and supplies to schools in Trincolmalee.

"As at today and speaking for Trincomalee, not much of mid and long term help appears to be reaching those in need of it," he says.

So here is what Mr. Caspersz and his colleague Bala Wimaladass are doing. They are providing shoes to children in afected areas, as they go back to school. Hats off to what he is tirelessly doing over in Sri Lanka.

Number of pairs of shoes for Girls Boys Total

St Mary's College 148 0 148

KM Sri Koneswara Hindu College 0 106 106

Methodist Girls College 63 0 63

Sri Shamnuga Hindu Ladies Colgl 70 0 70

Total 281 106 387

The next order of 378 pairs of shoes from Ceylon Leather Products Limited (CPL) is scheduled for delivery to the Trincomalee area schools around the 21st of February 2005. Also will be added 765 pairs of socks.

Chasing after funds, visiting these schools and making those trips to the East coast is something Joey does on top of his normal work in insurance.

Comments

Hi - I'm looking for groups/communities to partner with us within the US. The idea - neither new nor old I guess - is that we will connect communities in Maine (and elsewhere), with communities in Sri Lanka post-reconstruction. We are well into the work, and are seeking new partners.

The goal of the Sahana Project (www.sahanaproject.org), is to transform the events of 12/26 into something positive that outlives the tragedy. We want therefore to create a partnership between people here who want to help with those needing help, that goes beyond simply putting up walls and buying boats. While we will, indeed, be doing those things, the underlying focus is on forging connections between human beings, rather than large scale fundraising for unidentifiable goals! As such, there is a strong educational component to the Sahana Project - we do presentations on Sri Lanka to groups around the state - whereby people here can learn more about the country and the culture of Sri Lanka.

The Sahana Project's educational component is designed to avoid painting a sad story and playing to people's feelings of sympathy. It is primarily about learning that there are positive things we can gain from one another no matter how destitute we might appear to be - in fact, we "lost " a couple of people who stormed out of one of the presentations saying "well, this clearly isn't a third world country we are dealing with they are obviously smart enough to know what they need," quite as though one had to be ignorant and miserable and have no knowledge of what ones needs might be in order to have the support of people half a world away!

One of the ways in which we want to organize the Sahana Project is to have groups of people around Maine and elsewhere to engage in small-scale fundraisers that would go towards the rebuilding of a single village. The total cost of rebuilding the village of Kalamitiya which abuts the Kumana birdlife sanctuary - including 31 homes, a community center, restoration of livelihoods, youth skills programming and a revolving loan fund for women - is approximately $200,000. While it is entirely possible to raise that money through big donations, we are actively seeking to limit our work to dollar campaigns and grassroots fundraisers - soup/bread lunches, handmade crafts etc. - because we want people to invest more than their money in the cause. We combine those efforts with the presentations so people can learn about the people they are being asked to help. Eventually, we will be translating the information on our donor communities to Sinhala on the website so the people of Kalamitiya can learn about those who helped them and how they did it. (Yes, this IS all about world peace!)

Our partner in Sri Lanka is the Disaster Management & Information Program of the Green Movement of Sri Lanka, a small team of 8 staff and hundreds of volunteers who have been at the forefront of the relief effort from the beginning. Their expertise in disaster management and their commitment to sustainable and non-exploitative processes works well with our own goals.

It would be great to have a representative group from each state - currently we have people in IL, CA, WA, NJ, VT and MA exploring ways to connect with our efforts. You could support the building of a single home or any other part of the reconstruction project. Please email me at rfreeman@colby.edu if you are interested

- Cheers, Ru

p.s. Rebuilding has begun in Kalamitiya, we have breakdown of cost estimate, the names of the families, floor plans etc.